Crystal Hefner ‘deprogrammed’ after life with Hef at Playboy mansion

Crystal Hefner was simply 21 years previous when she met Hugh Hefner, 81, on the Playboy mansion’s notorious Halloween get together, which was identified for its visitor listing of celebrities and scantily clad fashions.

He requested her to maneuver in with him — and his 18-year-old twin girlfriends, Karissa and Kristina Shannon — days later.

“It was very, very quick. I feel he had quite a lot of expertise with simply transferring folks in instantly,” Crystal informed The Publish. “The ‘I really like yous’ began fairly fast.

“I’ve discovered all about love bombing since then.”

It led to marriage in 2012, when Crystal was 26. Over the 10-year relationship, she buried who she actually was, lived with a 6 p.m. curfew, couldn’t journey and gave herself over to a “needy” man who she felt too responsible to depart.

She was at Hefner’s bedside when he died in 2017, at age 91.

However it’s solely been lately that Crystal, now 37, has come to phrases with the darker facet of her life with Hef.

It’s taken hours of remedy and “deprogramming” to untangle the particles of her life with the person who based the Playboy empire in 1953. She’s thrown away all however considered one of her “bunny lady” outfits, eliminated her breast implants and spent the previous year-and-a-half writing a memoir known as “Solely Say Good Issues.”

“It’s known as ‘Solely Say Good Issues’ as a result of I [had] a dialog with Hef and he let me know: ‘As soon as I am going, after I’m gone, please solely say good issues about me,’” Crystal informed The Publish.

“I saved that promise for the final 5 years. After going via quite a lot of remedy and therapeutic, I spotted that I wanted to be sincere about my time there. The ebook is about therapeutic from a poisonous setting.”

Born Crystal Harris in Lake Havasu, Arizona, she quickly moved to Birmingham, England — the place her household lived upstairs from her dad and mom’ pub — earlier than settling down in San Diego at age 8.

She was a psychology pupil at San Diego State College and a part-time mannequin when a buddy steered she submit a photograph to attend a Playboy get together.

Describing herself as “insecure and younger,” Crystal was shocked when she was invited to the 2008 Halloween bash. There, she struck up a dialog with Hef they usually discovered widespread floor: he had studied psychology on the College of Illinois 40 years earlier than she was born.

Crystal recalled being “enthralled” by the “surreal scene,” describing it as Willy Wonka like and revealing: “It’s like, ‘Oh, that is how the opposite half reside.’”

Only a day after she arrived house, Hef known as to ask her to maneuver in and be his girlfriend together with the Shannon twins.

At first, Crystal mentioned, she thought, “Wow, I lastly belong someplace and I’m necessary — by affiliation, however I’m nonetheless necessary. Yeah, it feels good.”

It didn’t take lengthy, although, earlier than “the facade [and] every thing form of unraveled … Everybody was kissing an 80-year-old.”

Within the latest A&E docu-series “Secrets and techniques of Playboy,” Karissa compared sex with Hefner to rape and mentioned she had an abortion after turning into pregnant by him at age 19.

“I felt disgusted with my physique,” Karissa, now 33, mentioned.

Crystal recalled Hef’s relationship with the younger twins as “so unusual”: “I bear in mind Hef holding them, like, ‘My infants.’ [It was] so bizarre. They have been 18.”

Crystal quickly discovered herself in a coercive relationship.

“As he bought older, [Hefner] simply bought extra needy and depending on me,” she mentioned.

“Hef cherished the previous motion pictures the place the ladies have been simply fainting and helpless, they usually may do nothing with out a man, they usually requested a person for every thing,” she mentioned, including that she was “rewarded for being the helpless damsel.”

And it was all in regards to the enterprise, on a regular basis, as Hef would continuously ask Crystal to “put on the flag” —  the Playboy bunny brand. It led to competitors among the many girls.

“The outfits for the events, you needed to try to look your greatest so that you simply’re trying pretty much as good or higher than the opposite girlfriends,” Crystal mentioned.

“You’re in a spot the place you can simply get replaced, so that you’re at all times form of on guard,” she added. “It’s arduous to make mates.”

She additionally needed to reside by the home guidelines — together with a 6 p.m. curfew.

“When Hef would exit, it could be to a membership to go choose up girls. So I feel he assumed that, after I was going out, I used to be going to go do the identical factor, Crystal mentioned .Actually, I simply needed to go to Disneyland or to the seaside, or to anyplace.

“One time, I requested him to journey to Paris as a result of I needed to go Paris Disneyland … He mentioned, ‘No, go after I’m gone.’”

She stopped asking.

Crystal and Hef have been set to get married in June 2011 however she known as it off 5 days earlier than the marriage. They finally wed in December 2012 — partially due to guilt she felt.

“In direction of the top of his life, I felt like I couldn’t go away him. I needed to handle him,” Crystal mentioned. “It was like, ‘OK, he adores me and he wants me, and he leans on me for therefore many various causes and I can’t go away him.’ So I used to be there until the very finish.”

Reflecting on their time collectively, she added: “I’m solely now simply form of studying what it means to be in a wholesome relationship. 

In 2015, Holly Madison — Hefner’s earlier ‘No. 1’ girlfriend, who had starred on the E! actuality present “The Ladies Subsequent Door” alongside his different primary girlfriends on the time, Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt — had claimed that that Hefner had “every kind of bare photos” of girls to allegedly use for blackmail.

Crystal thinks that Hefner took the photographs for enjoyable and had no intention of blackmail. However after his demise, she mentioned, “I cleaned the home out and I discovered them. I simply thought of if I have been the ladies in these photographs, what would I need to have accomplished with them? So I made certain to tear all of them up. They’re all shredded and thrown away.”

After Hefner died on Sept. 27, 2017, “I couldn’t even go away the home or my bed room for 2 weeks as a result of I used to be so upset,” Crystal recalled.

“Finally my buddy invited me away … my very first journey exterior the mansion was to Africa, and we saved that journey going. We went over to Australia. It was only a month-long journey. It was very wanted.”

She’s now teamed up with a buddy for this week’s launch of First Ape Wives Club — “a group of 10,000 NFTs that can function your digital membership cross … [to] luxurious journey facilities like complimentary upgrades,” created with girls in thoughts, in line with its Twitter, in addition to members-only events and devoted travel-agent help.

“I’m studying what feminine friendship even means — studying what it’s prefer to have feminine mates that actually need the very best for you that you can truly belief. It was a tough cutthroat setting for therefore lengthy. I’m studying to let love in,” Crystal mentioned.

“There’s additionally some arrested improvement the place I lived the identical life in the identical bubble from after I was 21 years previous till 31 years previous.”

She dated actor Ryan Malaty however is now single and casually courting.

“Within the relationship with Hef, I used to be rewarded for being codependent and so many different unusual aggressive issues,” Crystal mentioned. “I’m simply studying what it’s prefer to be a traditional human courting and being in relationships. It’s been very arduous.”

She retains in contact with Hef’s children — Christie, 70, and David, 67, by the Playboy founder’s first spouse Millie Williams, and sons Marston, 33, and Cooper, 31, whose mom is Hef’s second spouse, Kimberly Conrad.

The Playboy mansion was offered earlier than Hefner’s demise, however Crystal stays president of Hefner’s basis and has helped to archive his belongings.

“It’s nonetheless difficult for me,” she mentioned. “Hef was a narcissist and a misogynist … he was a really difficult human. However he additionally did quite a lot of good. He helped lots of people and helped arise for issues.

“On the similar time, he additionally harm folks in ways in which he didn’t understand.”

Having had her 34D breast implants removed whereas battling Lyme disease, Crystal finds herself dressing very in another way as of late.

“I’m realizing I may be who I’m, and discovering out [I’m] nothing like the life-style I used to be in. I don’t even put on heels! These little outfits we have now to put on on a regular basis — I’m like, ugh,” she mentioned. “I’ve actually thrown [away] every thing … It’s virtually like PTSD for me. I can’t even have a look at the stuff. I’ve thrown out all of the clothes, all of the outfits, all of the issues that I wore on ‘The Ladies Subsequent Door.’”

There’s one sartorial memento she’s held onto, although: “I nonetheless have my bunny swimsuit.”

“I wrote one thing on my Instagram at this time that mentioned I’ve advanced from naively contributing to misogynistic tradition to advocating in opposition to it,” Crystal added. “I plan on beginning a podcast quickly known as ‘Beneath the Floor.’ I’m going to be speaking to quite a lot of girls which have been via comparable issues, which I feel shall be necessary.”

Her ebook shall be printed in January by Grand Central Publishing, and she or he admitted to altering quite a lot of names in it for authorized causes. However Crystal mentioned she isn’t holding again.

“I’m realizing that it’s OK to … converse up and never be OK with some issues that I’ve been via,” she mentioned.

“I might say my instinct, or the little voice that tells you proper from incorrect, I form of pushed that down on the mansion. So, I’m listening to her extra.”